


Same Simple Puzzle, New Day One

by kayliemalinza



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Chuck Lives, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hangover, Non-Sexual Bondage, Platonic BDSM, Shaving, Shibari, Virgin Chuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 19:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayliemalinza/pseuds/kayliemalinza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Chuck broke his arm instead of Herc, and so Herc dies in the final battle with Pentecost.</p><p>Mako steps in as a replacement father figure to give Chuck a kick in the ass. The hug is--well, you'll see.</p><p>Teaser:  "Get up," says Mako. "You smell terrible."</p><p> Chuck glares and wants to make a comeback, but what's he got? Oh, tsk, the creases on your trousers are only sharp enough to cut butter instead of rope? Don't you know that tank top's not regulation?</p><p> Instead he says, "Who gives a fuck?"</p><p> That's been a good fallback lately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Same Simple Puzzle, New Day One

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for a very brief contemplation of self-harm.

Chuck wakes up diagonal across with bed with his head hanging off and a bucket on the floor beneath it. Mako's cross-legged at his desk, reading something, rubbing Max's forehead absently with her knuckles. 

 Chuck tries to sit up and realizes that his arms are lashed to his torso with dark blue rope that's too soft to be useful for anything mechanical, and the twin lines of knots down his front look more decorative than structural. They kinda look like dog nipples. "What the--" His voice is scratchy, hurts.

 "You were too heavy to carry," Mako says, and Chuck's never been more grateful in his life that she's so soft-spoken. His head is pounding. His arm throbs, but it's been doing that for days. The cast is light and webbed and itches like hell. "I had to drag you up from the hanger."

 "Why the hell did you do a thing like that?" Chuck asks, then clamps his mouth shut against a sudden vomit reflex. Max is scrambling up onto the bunk-- because Mako stopped petting him, probably--and the motion's hellish and he smells like dirt and dog. Chuck tries to push him away but it's not easy without arms, and Max interprets the pressure as an invitation to flop down across his lap.

 "You drank too much," Mako announces. She's facing them now, back straight, palms braced on her knees. 

 "Oh yeah? I hadn't noticed," Chuck says. His voice isn't as snotty as it could be but that's just because he's tired and he aches. If Chuck remembers right, all the decks between here and there have the grit buffed out of the concrete and are lacquered with a slick waterproof seal, so he probably doesn't have road rash. But his hip hurts, probably bruised from the lip of an elevator, and there's a streak of engine oil down his left calf. No pants. Whatever. Mako was probably just being thorough when she put him to bed. Look, his boots are toed against the wall neat as you please. She even did the buckles up.

 Chuck nudges Max again, hoping he'll get the point this time, and--oh, crap. Where's his fucking collar? Chuck couldn't give a damn if he wandered through the mess hall in his boxers, but if Max has been running around naked all night, where anyone could've just _taken_ him and not known who to call--

 "Max, get down," Mako says.

 "Where's his collar," Chuck says, and Mako shoots him an inscrutable look--learned that from the sainted Pentecost, yeah? At least she doesn't hold back when she talks. The last time Chuck asked for her opinion, her answer was so precise that his face went red and Dad looked _worried_ \--

 "I will ask around for it," she says. "Don't worry. Everyone here knows who Max belongs to."

 Sure about that? They can't just match him to the insignia on Striker anymore, since Striker's--

 "Get up," says Mako. "You smell terrible."

 Chuck glares and wants to make a comeback, but what's he got? Oh, tsk, the creases on your trousers are only sharp enough to cut butter instead of rope? Don't you know that tank top's not regulation?

 Instead he says, "Who gives a fuck?"

 That's been a good fallback lately.

 Mako's mouth goes thin and she stands up from the desk, fists lightly clenching, and walks over like she's crossing the kwoon mat. Barefoot, yeah, because she just made herself at home in his quarters.

 "I do," she says, and wrinkles her nose. "Up. Now."

 Chuck curls his legs and rolls himself up into a halfway sit but only because he wants to, not because she told him to. "You think you might untie me?" he asks. This whole no-arms thing is really inconvenient and you'd think she would know that, considering how her jaeger got banged up.

 But even without the rope, Chuck only has one good arm, and that's why--

 "No," she says, and yanks him all the way upright. "You are better behaved like this." 

 Chuck scowls. Just because he can't throw a punch doesn't mean he's going to behave. 

 Mako grabs his ankles and tugs them gently over the lip of the bed, sets his feet wide and flat against the floor, then wedges her hands beneath two of the knots on his chest to pull him forward and up.

 He wants to topple on top of her, just for spite, but that's more motion than he wants to subject his belly to and he doesn't want to crack his head on the deck. When he instinctively steadies himself she pats his chest and says, "Good boy."

 Chuck considers throwing up on Mako's feet. 

 "You're a right freak," he mutters. He's pretty sure the ropes are a sex thing.

 Mako ignores that and leads him into the bathroom, fingers still hooked beneath the rope criss-crossing his chest. She knocks the toilet lid down and lowers him onto it, cantilevering her body like floor-techs getting crates down off the crane. 

 "Headache?" she asks, and he nods. 

 She cracks open the standard-issue med kit, pulls a mostly-clean glass off the counter. Chuck used it last night, he thinks, pregaming with Gatorade and crappy vodka. She drops a fizzy tablet into a glass of water and looks at him, determining logistics.

 "No way," says Chuck, just for the record, before she grabs his jaw with one hand.

 "Open," she says, and Chuck does because unlike Max, he actually understands that medicine is good for him.

 Max is curled up between his feet, by the way, fat and warm against his ankles. Maybe Mako will trip over him and fall down and it'll be her fault for keeping Chuck tied up so he can't catch her. 

His eyes shut all on their own, like he's a doll-baby tipped back. He gags and Mako tilts the glass back again, her palm laying coolly against his adam's apple like she's gonna rub it to make him swallow. 

 Chuck breathes through his nose, lowers his collar bones, and the water goes down easy.

 "Good boy," says Mako, and wipes a trickle from the corner of his mouth.

 Max snuffles down below, like he earned that. 

Chuck's head goes woozy for a while, all fogged up without the focus of pain. He should kick Mako out, but standing up seems like an exhausting risk. The toilet seat isn't exactly comfortable, but the ropes are. It's like when Max was a puppy and got so freaked out during his first chopper ride that they swaddled him up in a jacket, and he calmed right down and went to sleep. He drooled on Chuck's shoulder and Chuck nearly froze without his jacket but as long as his bulldog gets a nap in, right? Dad went weird-faced staring at them and probably would've said something dumb if Chuck hadn't asked him about missile specs.

Something pats the top of his head. Chuck opens his eyes and Mako's looking weird-faced, too. A little bit smug. She holds out his toothbrush with a line of toothpaste sitting pretty across the bristles.

Freakin' perfectionist. 

Chuck thinks about biting her--definitely tilts his head to graze his molars against her knuckles when they get too close--but that just results in a jab to his gums, and a sad little noise he's never gonna lay claim to, and she goes gentle after that. She even brushes his tongue without making him gag.

The water glass comes out again, and she lets him lean over to spit into the sink.

Chuck wonders if a comb is next, but Mako digs into his toiletry bag, ignoring the dried soap streaks and toothpaste flecks, the antiseptic splashes of something that's probably not mouthwash, and pulls out his shaving cream.

Chuck's given up complaining. He just slumps against the toilet back when she starts smearing shaving cream across his face, expertly dabbing up his sideburns and across his upper lip. 

The razor she pulls out is the straight-blade, slightly rusted at the hinge. That's not the one he's been using--Sydney and Hong Kong both had disposables available--but she holds it like she knows it and honestly, Chuck could give a crap if she sliced him up.

He's not supposed to think like that, though. The counselor said so. Told him she'd phrase it like an order, if he wanted.

Mako curls her fingers into the soft underside of his jaw and leans in.

"How do you--" His lips catch on the edge of the blade but Mako pulls back in time. She shushes him, then strokes again at the hollow of his cheek.

When she turns to tap the razor against the sink, he tries again: "How'd you learn to shave?"

"I watched the Marshal," she says.

That's how Chuck learned, too. Well, he watched his dad. He didn't pay as good attention as Mako did, obviously. His peach fuzz came in while Dad was deployed at another 'Dome--Chuck can't even remember which one, now--and he had to go down to the quartermaster himself to pick up anything vaguely familiar, and ended up with a scratch all the way down in front of his left ear. 

But it was worth it. Dad came back a month later and Chuck muscled in front of him to get to the mirror the next morning, setting out his shaving kit like he'd been doing it for years, and Dad stared at him in the mirror and neither of them said a word about it. 

Mako scrapes her way from one side of his face to the other, careful strokes around his nose and mouth like going around rocks with her sand rake. It's so slow and measured that Max has gotten bored and fallen asleep between his feet. Mako is silent, the sharp ends of her hair leaning out into space as she tilts her head. Her eyes follow every curve of his bone and skin and the razor reflects in a warped curve against her iris.

The razor could bleed him out but it's less annoying than the cast, which rubs against his biceps and the ball of his thumb and gets caught in his jacket sleeve.

"How do you do it?" he asks, as quietly as that time he said goodbye and nothing much else at all.

"What do you mean?"

"You're so.... It's like it didn't bother you." That's not what he means to say, and he knows it's not true, so he hurries on: "You're, I dunno, _coping_." That's a word people have been using a lot lately.

Mako gives a little shrug, just her shoulder and elbow moving while her wrist stays still, keeping the blade settled and sure against his skin. "Every morning, I wake up. I take a shower. I brush my hair. I make sure there are clean clothes."

Chuck snorts. He could've predicted that. Mori's always been obnoxiously put-together, clean-pressed and trimmed. Learned it from the Marshal. Dad talked big about service and duty but if he wasn't in uniform, he could give a damn about his five o'clock shadow.

He didn't even brush his teeth everyday, the fucking pig.

"What, that's it?" Chuck says. "The secret to happiness is personal hygiene?" 

Mako takes a breath before speaking. "You misunderstand me," she says, shaving briskly around the curve of his jaw. "Those are simple things that I can concentrate on. They are easy to do, and I can see the effects of my work. The first thing I do in the morning is to take control of myself and what is around me."

Chuck used do a hundred push-ups in the morning. He stopped after--he stopped because there no point to it, is there? What's he gonna use that upper arm strength for now: basket weaving? He could keep this cast on forever and be exactly as useful.

"Yeah, that's crap," he mutters. "You can buff the casing all you want, but that doesn't mean the gears inside aren't wrecked."

Mako takes a long time rinsing the foam off the razor and doesn't answer.

Chuck isn't an expert on psychobabble or anything, but he is an expert on hitting where it hurts. That's a fucking kill shot, there.

Chuck's left cheek isn't finished but Mako presses two fingers to his forehead, tilting his head back to get at the throat. Chuck tries to peer down his nose at her for a while, but his eyeballs hurt like they're rusty in the sockets so he gives up, looks at the ceiling.

Mako shaves around his adam's apple with more care and dexterity than she'd even used for his chin. Right. The Mori-Pentecosts don't get flustered; they get _accurate_.

Dad told him the Marshal was sick, once, when he was halfway through a fifth of something foul, and Chuck didn't believe it. No way the Marshal gets tripped up by body fluids and sneezing. He could get E. coli and the vomit would stay put until he said otherwise. The man probably shat perfect spheres.

Chuck suddenly wants to mess up Mako's strokes so he blurts out, soft and desperate: "Am I one of those things? Something simple to concentrate on?"

The blade and her fingers fall away so Chuck tilts his head down again, squinting his eyes against the overhead light and all the hard surfaces in here reflecting it. 

Mako nods sheepishly. "I hope you don't mind."

_Not good for anything else right now, am I?_

"S'alright," Chuck says. "What about, uh, Raaaaleigh, eh? Is he one of your little projects, too?"

Mako gives him a bemused look, like he's asking entirely the wrong question. She doesn't say anything, but there's some cogs grinding away in there. Maybe Chuck will get an answer in a week.

The last dregs of foam sputter down the drain. She folds a hand towel neatly in half, turns the tap steam-hot and wets it, dabs at Chuck's face, like cleaning a kitten after it eats. 

There's a video, somewhere, of Herc spooning mush into some baby's mouth. Maybe a distant relative has the video now. Chuck could ask around, look up their names in his dossier.

Max clambers up and sticks his chin on Chuck's knee, heavy with a trail of drool down one side. He has to stretch up to reach and his eyes bug out with the effort. 

"Can't really pet you right now, Max," Chuck says, squirming in the ropes to demonstrate. 

"Oh!" Mako says, like she'd forgotten. She tugs at the ropes in some magical combination Chuck can't make any sense of, tilts him forward to lean against her as she unwinds the rope from around his back, sets him back and does more fiddling in the front. The ropes fall away in stages and Chuck feels like he's falling apart with them. He swallows thickly. He thinks about his clean teeth and smooth-stretched face and the lime deposits on the showerhead and crooked grout between tiles and anything, anything besides his gut and his heart and his salt-leaky eyes.

Mako coils the rope as fast as she coils cables in LOCCENT, cinches the middle with a knot and then slides the loop carefully up her arm, like comically large braid on her shoulder. The world's biggest epaulette for the world's biggest hero.

"You need to shower," she says, twisting his hair between her fingers to gauge the grease levels. "I sent out a load of laundry last night, so there is a clean outfit on the dresser. You will report to breakfast by 1030, and then prepare for a barracks inspection at 1300."

"Who the hell cares if my room is clean?" Chuck bites out. He's just nauseous and hungover; that's why his stomach's churning and it's hard to breathe and his face is twisting up. 

"Those are your orders, Hansen," Mako says. 

Oh, so it doesn't matter who cares. It's just chain-yanking. That pisses Chuck off but he's used to it. He sucks in a breath too quickly and that's why his voice pitches up. It's not a whine: "How the hell am I supposed to get it done by then?" If breakfast takes him thirty minutes, all he'll have is two hours.

"Work quickly," Mako answers.

Chuck rolls his eyes. His arms are dangling down, loose like they're someone else's. Without the ropes, he doesn't know what to do with them. "So it's that simple, eh?"

"Yes. It is." Mako hooks her arms under his and hauls him up. Chuck's a little pleased that her wrists are gonna smell like his stale booze-sweat now. No-one ever said he was a good person, yeah? 

She turns on the shower, testing the water temperature with her fingers, and for a second Chuck thinks she's gonna strip him and go at him with the soap just to make sure the job gets done. He's not equipped to consider how he'd feel about that.

But Mako squares her shoulders at him, dips her head in a nod that he echoes without really deciding to. "Hop to it," she says, and leaves, and slides the door shut behind her.

Max snuffles in her wake, then accepts the loss and flops down on the tile again.

Chuck breathes, in and out. He drags his shirt up by the hem one-handed and tugs it carefully over his broken arm. Fine. He'll shower, and eat, and clean up his crap. Orders are orders, and it's not like he has anything else to follow.


End file.
